Forgetting Julia
by Aviva Aria
Summary: Clare has known that she loves Eli for a while now, head over heels, til death do us part, kind of love, she's just not sure if he's ready to give up Julia yet. Maybe to get over her once and for all he has to tell Clare about Julia and finally forget her


I've been meaning to write a Degrassi fanfiction for awhile. I love all those stories out there, especially ones by the lovely ZephyrHearts, the storytelling genius, WAZAM, the magnificent themusiksnob, and the fantastic floorplanhobo. If you are new to reading EClare stories, they are the creme-de-la-creme of authors, and any stories favorited by them are incredible too, so go forth and read them. After you read (and perhaps review) mine.

I do not own Degrassi, as much as I would like too, I'm sure if I did, Daniel Clark (Sean) and I would be married by now, with Munro Chambers as my "kept boy" (despite being the same age, he looks so boyish, I must call him that).

Now onto the story.

* * *

Forgetting Julia

"So, in order to delve a little into your souls, and get a little closer to you guys, I'm assigning a paper on the toughest moment in your life. It can be the day your younger sibling was brought home, the time you broke your leg or even your dog's death, as long as it's truthful and comes from your heart, I will be happy. We will be reading these aloud next Friday, so that gives you seven days to work. I will have my own paper so that you can learn a bit about me as well. Don't forget to peer edit." Ms. Dawes spoke quietly to the class, her glasses sliding down her nose as she assigned our newest paper.

I wanted Clare to turn around and look at me, make some sort of eye contact so that I could reach out and tell her I was thinking about her.

These two months of being in a relationship with her really made me rely on human contact more so now than after Julia died. I feel like I need to come into some kind of personal contact with her to remind myself that this isn't a dream, that Clare is alive and enjoyed spending time with me. I needed to make sure that I wasn't alone anymore.

It's obvious what I was going to write about. Julia was an important part of my life, and her death really changed me. I just had to find the proper way to tell Ms. Dawes, and Clare about everything that had happened.

I could feel Eli's eyes boring into the back of my head, like he expected me to explode at any moment, or something like that.

I know what Eli is going to write about, Julia has always been a major part of our relationship. I myself, am leaning towards Darcy and all of her issues, snowballing into my parent's divorce. Not as intense as Eli's tragedy, but still upsetting.

The bell rang and Eli, Adam, and I gathered our stuff, stoping for a moment at my locker as I changed books. Adam gave me a brief hug before clapping a hand to Eli's shoulder and heading off to remedial gym.

"Do you want to come over for dinner tonight? Cece just finished that class on Japanese Cuisine and is making homemade sushi." He put a hand at the base of my neck, ensuring that our eyes were meeting, our foreheads leaning against one another.

"You sure she won't mind?" I could smell the faint scent of Irish Spring soap and the spicy scent of his deodorant, a strange combination but something I have learned to recognize as Eli.

He kissed me firmly, my lips opening in a gasp that turned quickly into a silent moan as his hands pulled me closer, our hips pressed together. We reluctantly pulled apart as someone roughly shoved against us yelling back as he rushed away to 'get a room.'

I groaned in annoyance, a blush fiercely burning across my cheeks, my eyes cast downwards, he chuckled in response.

"I'm sure" he kissed me again, before heading off to Chemistry.

* * *

I met Eli and Adam after school in front of Morty. Adam wanted to join us for a brief meeting in the Dot, hoping to discuss his ever changing relationship with Fiona. She seemed to give him more confidence these days, but now that she knew about his little secret, he wanted to take things to a more serious level, and supposedly needed a 'girls opinion' on the matter.

"She was completely cool about it, now all we need to do is build up to the more physical stuff." Adam was anxiously twisting his napkin in his fist. The words spouting from his lips were hurried whispers as his blue eyes searched around the cafe, making sure no one was eavesdropping on our conversation.

"Exactly, 'build up', this will take time, especially after what happened with that Bobby creep. Just give her some hints, let her come to you." Eli's hand was resting on my knee, stroking gentle circles as I spoke.

"That's a god idea and all, but does she know that your interested in more?" my head snapped up, my eyes molding to his face. "Girls don't always get those hints, no offense Clare, they can be kind of dense when it comes to sex." His hand squeezed my thigh, as though he were trying to give me a hint to what he meant.

"Maybe she's not ready yet, maybe she wants to know that you want her for more than just sex." My eyes moved back and forth from Adam's opened, upturned face, to Eli's questioning one.

"If she feels that way she should tell you" His hand moved from my leg.

"Or, she could be afraid that you would be upset with her." Our faces moved closer together as we argued.

"Guy's, I'm just going to go...your not really talking about me and Fiona anymore" Adam was timid in his escape, afraid that any loud noses or sharp movements would cause us to attack.

I hated arguing in front of Adam. It kind of made me feel like Eli and I were the parents and Adam our sad, scared little boy trying to escape his parent's fighting.

Obviously, I already knew what Eli was hinting at though. He had been ready for a while to take things to the next level, his hands moving more whenever we kissed, cupping my breasts, squeezing my butt, he wanted more from me, and as much as I wanted to give him more, I was still considered second to Julia.

* * *

After the Dot, I gave my mother a quick call to tell her I'd be at Eli's, working on our latest English assignment, she really didn't pay attention to me just told me not to be home too late.

When we got to Eli's house he dragged me up to his room and pulled me onto his bed, I had barely a second to look around at the progress he had made in combatting his hoarding issues, before his lips were on mine again, his fingers sliding against the skin of my back. My eyes closed in pleasure as he pushed me into his pillows, his old Batman sheets worn and comfy beneath us. My fingers pulled at his hair, slipping through the strands at the back of his neck pulling him closer to me.

My lips parted in a sigh and his tongue slipped between my teeth, stroking delicately at mine, inspiring a swirling heat to rush through my body. I wanted more, he wanted more. I slid my leg up, pressing my hips against his, hoping to feel some sort of pressure to ease the tension between my legs. I could feel how wet my underwear was, hoping that Eli couldn't feel it. He rubbed himself against me, his hardness poking against my stomach as his hand moved down cupping at my core, pressing in just the right spot.

I moaned lightly, hoping his parent's couldn't hear me as their son pleasured me. His other hand reached up and cupped my left breast and I bit my lip to stop making too much noise.

"Eli, Baby, is Clare in there with you?" His mother was right outside the door, and seconds later, Cece had found her way into his room, she laughed when she saw the predicament we were in.

"Hi Clare, I though those were your shoes downstairs and though I would come up to say hi." Eli had pushed himself off of me, rolling over to calm his body down. The bulge between his legs, pressing at the front of his jeans deflating rapidly as his mother spoke to me.

"Hi Mrs. Goldesworthy...uhhh..sorry about that-Eli and I were about to get some work done so-" I was nervous and blushing, my hands trying to smooth out the wrinkles in my khaki school skirt.

"Call me Cece sweetie, I know what you were doing, I just wanted to stop by and drop off some condoms before I went down and finished dinner, your staying I assume?" She dropped a box of condoms onto Eli's dresser. I nodded my head rapidly completely embarrassed by the situation. "Next time Baby lock the door ok?"

Eli peeked out from behind his hand. "Next time knock, ok?" He tried to scowl at her as she left his room, but the embarrassment was too much.

"I guess we should get to work" I spoke softly against his neck as he pulled me against him again, and he reluctantly let go.

* * *

_As someone who has never known anyone who has died before, losing Julia was the hardest thing. _

_Losing Julia. _

_I hate that term, who decided that when someone dies you lose them. They aren't lost, they aren't a missing sock lost in the dryer. They are—were a real person, living, breathing...they can't be lost, they just are gone. One day they are breathing into your neck telling you that you make them feel so alive, and the next day—poof, they're gone. _

Clare looked up at me as she read the beginning of my paper, her eyes were shinning with unshed tears, and her bottom lip was pink—I could tell she had been biting it. Her big blue eyes were penetrating my soul as she searched for the right words to say.

"I think your rambling—I mean, I know what you are trying to say, your trying to make this into a story rather than an actual paper. But Ms. Dawes wants to know the toughest thing you've ever been through, not the reasons why you hate the word 'losing' as a term for dieing." She pushed a shaking hand through her curls. "I understand that you are trying to tell her how you felt, but—I don't know, maybe I'm too close to this to edit properly."

She set my paper down on my bed and I just kept on looking at her hands.

"Eli, I can't do this." She shakes her head at me and my eyes turn towards her face.

"What do you mean?"

"I-I know nothing about her, and yet, I feel like I'm competing with her, at every moment." I looked into her face as she whispered that, and I knew what I had to do.

"Clare—I love you." Her eyes widened at my words, and she reached for me, her fingers lacing through mine. "What do you want to know about her?"

"Everything."

* * *

Dinner came and went, Cece and Bullfrog spent most of the time embarrassing me, telling stories from my early days. I just wished, quite a few times, that the world would just swallow me whole so I could avoid this discussion. I was quiet for most of dinner though, not complaining as I normally would be, watching Clare eat and laugh and blush. I had to tell her about Julia, I just didn't know how.

As we ate I wrote in my head, and as soon as dinner was over I hurried Clare back up to my room and put a pen to paper, scrawling out the beginning of Julia's story.

* * *

_Losing Julia_

_Julia will always be with me, she is what made me who I am today, and no matter what anyone else says, she was the best thing about me. I'm not very good when it comes to talking about her. Julia is the one that keeps me up at night, or she was, before I met Clare. Its strange, but I can't remember Julia anymore, at least not as well as I used to, not since I found Clare. I close my eyes at night expecting to see her eyes or to dream about her laughter, but all I see anymore is Clare, her big blue eyes smiling up at me, crinkling at the sides, her lips spread wide in laughter. All I can do now is think of Clare, and it scares me, because I don't want to forget Julia._

_Julia and I met when we were 12, I had just gotten the new Final Fantasy game and I was raving about it to one of my friends, the sad thing is, I can't even remember his name, the only thing that I can really recall is this mousy girl with light brown hair and these huge dark eyes telling me that "Final Fantasy is a game for pussies," I immediately hated her with a passion. Julia became a part of my every day life, and we argued about everything, from music and art, to books and even politics, if she liked something, I had decided I would hate it, because anyone who thought that Final Fantasy sucked, must have bad taste. _

_The summer after I turned 13, everything fell into place, I had grown up, I realized that Julia was right and other games were better than Final Fantasy, I was playing Call of Duty and HALO and reading books by Vonnegut. School started and soon all I could think of was Julia, she had changed as well, she was taller, her chest was filling out and she had died her hair, a 'sign of rebellion' she told me. I had fallen into puppy love. _

I studied the page for a while, trying to think of something to say. Eli's eyes were bearing through my skull, trying to figure out what I was thinking.

"So, what do you think?" he looked anxious as he waited for my critique.

I really did not expect an explanation of his relationship with Julia, I just wanted him to tell me little things about her. Helping him clean out his room, I picked up bits and pieces, like she had gotten him into Skinny Puppy and the Cure, and that is why he didn't listen to them any more, and that she seemed to own many scrappy red lace underthings that ended up under his bed most of the time. I didn't know much about his life before me, so this was my insight into the previous life of Elijah Goldsworthy.

"Eli, are you going to tell Julia's story? Is that leading into the essay, or is this just for me?" I could feel a slight headache coming and was hoping his answer would give me a bit of relief.

"I really don't know" he shrugged his shoulders uncharacteristically and then smirked down at me. "I guess we will find out as we go along."


End file.
